148 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



here, some measure of the truth may be indicated with approxi- 

 mate certainty. Whatever the social conditions of a people may 

 be at any given time, they are largely the product of wealth and 

 intelligence. That the farmers of the United States have ad- 

 vanced in material welfare has already been shown, and this ad- 

 vance has been, and is, a prerequisite to intellectual growth and 

 social attainment. For, "as long as every man is engaged in 

 collecting the materials necessary for his own subsistence, there 

 will be neither leisure nor taste for the higher pursuits." That 

 the use of machine power stimulates mental growth and activity, 

 even in the operator himself, is too clear to require demonstration, 

 for the men who work most with machines are among those 

 properly classed as the most intelligent. 



It has been noted that, principally as a result of the intro- 

 duction of farm machinery, the agricultural population of the 

 United States decreased from 47.6 per cent, of the total popula- 

 tion in 1879, to 35.7 per cent, in 1900. The urban population 

 classes have increased, of course, by the same amount. 



Among those who have continued on the farms, socialization 

 has become a struggle for place against greater and constantly 

 increasing odds ; and this, too, in spite of the fact that not only 

 the general level but also that of the lower classes is much higher 

 than before. If we look to the proprietor, or independent class 

 of farm workers, we shall find a great difference between the 

 farmers of the period just before the introduction of machinery 

 and the farmer of to-day. The life of the farmer was charac- 

 terized by isolation. Cooperation was. largely limited to house- 

 raisings and husking-bees, -and these were so infrequent as to be 

 real social events. 



Self-sufficiency is no longer the ideal. The farmer has be- 

 come a specialist, devoting himself to particular branches of 

 farm work, as stock-raising; dairying; potato-, corn-, or wheat- 

 culture ; or to the raising of fruits, vegetables, cotton, or tobacco, 

 having in mind to secure the other things for which he has need 

 by means of exchange. The farmhouse is no longer isolated. 

 Good roads, the free delivery of mails, the telephone and the 

 electric car lines bring the farmhouse into the very suburbs of 

 the city. 



The home is supplied with conveniences undreamed of by 



